The radiation dispersed into the environment by the three reactor meltdowns at Fukushima-Daiichi in Japan has exceeded that of the April 26, 1986 Chernobyl catastrophe, so we may stop calling it the "second worst" nuclear power disaster in history.BOJ abandons target date for achieving 2% inflation

Although a number of factors can be identified, this is mainly a matter of net energy decline. In developed societies it takes a lot of energy to raise a child, and net energy decline makes that energy increasingly expensive. -- RF

The Democratic Party's War History and the AUMF of 2018If there's any surprise that Senate Democrats, most virtually indistinguishable from pro-war Republicans, are about to coalesce in support of the newest version of the AUMF [Authority for the Use of Military Force], then you have seriously not been paying attention.

If you are just counting the number of barrels, it may look that way. But the net energy of oil — especially junk energy like US shale oil and Canadian oil sand — continues to fall, meaning that in order to continue delivering the same amount of energy to the economy, you need to supply more and more barrels. -- RF

Condemned By Their Own WordsThis transcript of an Israeli General on an Israeli radio station (begins 6.52 in) defending the latest killing by Israeli army snipers of a 14 year old boy who posed no threat of any kind, is much more powerful if you just read it than any analysis I can give.

By several measures, the United States is in a period of historic economic growth and prosperity. Major stock market indices have hit record highs, unemployment is at a near two-decade low, and we are in the midst of what may prove to be the longest period of sustained GDP growth in U.S. history.

So begins the article. But the stock market is a bubble, 95 million people have disappeared from the labor force, and the moribund economy is propped up by skyrocketing debt. It's no wonder there's extreme poverty. -- RF

As a whole, the American fracking experiment has been a financial disaster for many of its investors, who have been plagued by the industry's heavy borrowing, low returns, and bankruptcies, and the path to becoming profitable is lined with significant potential hurdles.

Patrick DeHaan, the senior analyst at GasBuddy, told UPI that the spike in gas prices means Americans are paying about $86 million per day more to fill up their tanks than they were a month ago. The economy, with discretionary spending under threat, may be facing some headwinds as a result.

And for good reason. But the worst reason, unfortunately outside the article's scope, is that ethanol is worthless. Its energy return is far too low to benefit industrial society, and therefore it's just diluting perfectly good gasoline. A corollary is that dilution of the fuel supply with biofuels aggravates net energy decline. -- RF

A Natural Gas Crisis Looms Over ColombiaColombia's energy sector is caught in a series of crises. The prolonged slump in oil since the end of 2014 saw investment in the sector, which is critical to the economy, collapse. This sparked a sharp downturn in oil production, causing the Colombian peso to weaken sharply and economic growth to stall.

Cities and nations are looking at banning plastic straws and stirrers in hopes of addressing the world's plastic pollution problem. The problem is so large, though, that scientists say that's not nearly enough.

India's grand data system: a greater disaster than Facebook?Prime Minister Modi has enthusiastically campaigned to expand digital governance via the Aadhaar system. But millions of Indians are at risk because the system with all their personal ID leaks like a sieve and the govt response has been appalling.

Mideast leaders who toe the U.S. line and make nice to Israel are invariably called 'statesmen' or 'president' by the American government and its increasingly tame media. Their repression is conveniently downplayed.

There is food for thought here, but also some obvious errors in thinking. For example,

"But the idea of a nation state is coming to an end. Now almost anybody can go almost anywhere thanks to jet travel; you're no longer married to one place, like a medieval serf. And you can communicate with anybody anywhere on the planet thanks to the Internet; that makes it much harder to keep all the sheep thinking the same thing."

A mistaken assumption is that there will always be air travel and the internet. But these will inevitably fail. People will again be "married to one place," but we also have an opportunity to redesign society so that they won't be like medieval serfs. -- RF